Can you recommend a version control system?

[neddie]

Hi,

I'm looking for a simple version control system to store various versions of files - can anyone recommend something suitable? I've heard that Subversion is very powerful, but probably far too powerful for what I need.

 

I don't need multiple users, or branching, or merging, or anything complex. I just need to store various versions of sets of files (source code, html, scripts) and allow me to see all the previous iterations. It should be clever enough to only store the differences between versions when a file is changed, rather than the whole lot again, and it should be able to do a simple bit of diffing.

 

Is there some such tool available, do you know?

[coverup]

emacs has a simple version control/diffing capability. Not sure it's powerful enough for your tasks but is worth chacking

[theYinYeti]

The simplest (and standard) tool for simple revision control is RCS. I never used it, but man pages for "ci" (check in) and "co" (check out) should give you enough information.

 

Yves.

[ramfree17]

Hi,

I'm looking for a simple version control system to store various versions of files - can anyone recommend something suitable?  I've heard that Subversion is very powerful, but probably far too powerful for what I need.

 

i maintain one for my source codes, documents and configuration files. my repositories (i maintain a personal one apart from work-related) have only one user: me.

 

svn is right for your needs. you dont need to learn the advance stuff, well you only need to learn them if you need them (in my case i dont).

 

try giving it a spin. it fits your requirement of "only the changed" part very nicely.

 

ciao!

[neddie]

Ok, I had a quick look at dracs but it looks like svn is what I need. So the question is, why are there so many options for installing it? I select subversion-1.1.4-1 and it asks if I want libsvn_ra_svn..., dav or local ? I'm guessing I just need local access, so I pick that, and then it asks if I want libsvn_fs_base1 or libsvn_fs_fs1 - I guess I need the second one for the FSFS implementation? Most of the docs I found talk more about how to use it, rather than to install it.

 

Any help gratefully received, is this as simple as it gets?

[sellis]

I use subversion at home, and we came within a whisker of using it for work, but the art department wanted to use AlienBrain instead, so everyone ended up using it. (Not as good, IMHO.)

 

Subversion can work locally without having to set up server software and so on, and once it's going it's pretty easy to use. Just go into a controlled directory and type "svn status" to see what's changed, "svn add" to add any new files, "svn delete" to remove any old, out-of-date ones, and then "svn commit" to commit your changes.

[neddie]

Thanks for your tips, all!

I'll be giving it a go with the local and fsfs, and see what happens. Think I've got some doc-reading to do!!

Cheers.

[neddie]

Update: I did what I said I'd do, and it does exactly what it says it does! Result! It's easier than I feared, and the documentation (at svnbook.org) is excellent.

I'm a bit concerned that it only seems to look at the timestamps to check whether a file has changed, rather than a hash - it says nothing has changed until I "touch" the file, even when the contents are different. But apart from that, it's cool. I'm still digging around, but it works. Thanks for the tips.

[ramfree17]

im just a casual user but i always thought that subversion maintains a 'pristine' repository copy on the the .svn directory and changes are determined by comparing the file with its pristine copy. i dont think its merely based on the timestamp (which i thnk is still part of the comparison).

 

ciao!